"The Blacklisting of a
concept: The strange history of the brainwashing conjecture in the sociology
of religion".

Some excerpts from a large article
published on "NOVA RELIGIO", The Journal of Alternative and Emergent
Religions.

October, 1997.

To justify the charge of blacklisting requires
additionally that there be some degree of collusion within the established
power structure of a discipline to defame, ridicule, or ignore the theory
and to marginalize its adherents. I want to show that this has happened
and try to explain why.

[...]

This quote was taken from an email message
in 1989 that was sent out to an extensive list of recipients. I was one
of the recipients on the mistaken belief that I would be sympathetic to
the ideas expressed. Even though the email message has been widely distributed
and is famous throughout the discipline, I see no need to embarrass the
author by citing his name.

[...]

My work on the subject as well as that
of Richard Ofshe, Marybeth Ayella, Robert Cialdini, Amy Siskand, Roy Wallis,
Philip Zimbardo, and others has never been directly confronted, much less
refuted by sociologists of religion. Rather it has been defamed,ridiculed,
or ignored. There has been a sophisticated and subtle form of intellectual
bullying by an entrenched majority within the discipline of a small minority
composed of both sincere scholars and academic opportunists.

[...]

Another source of the bias against the
brainwashing conjecture may be found in the role that NRMs play in sponsoring
scholarly activities. Irving Louis Horowitz’s early warning of the corruption
of the scientific community by lavish funding from NRMs is relevant to
this issue. [Irving Louis Horowitz, Science, Sin and Scholarship: The
Politics of Reverend Moon and the Unification Church - Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1978]

[...]

Sociologists such as Irving Louis Horowitz,
Amitai Etzioni and Seymour Martin Lipset were as yet speaking openly of
the danger of academic co-optation by wealthy new religious organizations.

[...]

With regard to finances, a major obstacle
toward the sort of progress desired is the cloud of secrecy that surrounds
the funding of research on NRMs. The sociology of religion can no longer
avoid the unpleasant ethical question of how to deal with the large sums
of money being pumped into the field by the religious groups being studied
and, to a lesser extent, by their opponents. Whether in the form of subvention
of research expenses, subvention of publications, opportunities to sponsor
and attend conferences, or direct fees for services, this money is not
insignificant, and its influence on research findings and positions taken
on scholarly disputes is largely unknown.

[...]

I know there will be great resistance to
opening this can of worms, but I do not think there is any choice. This
is an issue that is slowly but surely building toward a public scandal.
It would be far better to deal with it ourselves within the discipline
than to have others expose it. I am not implying that it is necessarily
wrong to accept funding from interested parties, whether pro or anti, but
I do think there needs to be some more public accounting of where the money
is coming from and what safeguards have been taken to assure that this
money is not interfering with scientific objectivity.